Meet the Horai, the Hellenic Goddesses of the seasons (and hours)

The Mediterranean climate is characterized by two seasons: the first dry and hot, from Mounichion to Metageitnion (April to September) when river beds tended to dry up, the second is humid and marked by often violent rain storms brought in by west winds, with mild, frost free temperatures. The ancient Hellenes, however, distinguished three seasons: spring, summer and winter, and these had deities presiding over them--the Hôrai: Eunomia (Good Order, Good Pasture), Eirene (Peace, Spring), and Dike (Justice). 

These Goddesses were originally the personifications of nature in its different seasonal aspects, but in later times they were regarded as Goddesses of order in general and natural justice, because these were required for farming prosperity. Agriculture was the foundation of the Ancient Hellenic economy. Nearly 80% of the population was involved in this activity. It's not odd the two fundamentals were linked. The association of agriculture with law and order can also be found in the divinities of Zeus and Demeter, for example. The Horai also guard the gates of Olympos and rallied the stars and constellations of heaven.

Solon (Σόλων), an Athenian statesman and lawmaker who lived from 638 BC to 558 BC, spent most of his adult life trying to legislate against political, economic, and moral decline in archaic Athens. His ideologies are often credited with having laid the foundations for Athenian democracy. Like most statesmen and philosophers, Solon was also a poet. Which is to say, he captured his ideologies in verse. Like the one below, which demonstrates the importance of especially Eumenia as a concept and Goddess on society.

Eunomia

Good government makes everything well ordered and fit,

And at the same time it throws shackles on the unjust.

It levels out the rough, stops insolence, and weakens arrogance.

It causes the growing blossoms of blindness to wither.

It straightens crooked judgments and it levels out over-reaching deeds.

It stops the acts of civil conflict and

It stops the anger of grievous strife and because of it

Everything among men is wisely and appropriately done.

A second incarnation of the Horai exist, as Goddesses of the hours of the day (and perhaps also the twelve months of the year). They guide the path of the sun-god Helios as he journeyed across the sky, dividing the day into portions.

The ancient Hellenes did not have hours of fixed length as we do today. Instead, they divided the hours of daylight into twelve portions identified by the position of the sun in the sky. Thus the length of the hour varied between the longer days of summer and shorter ones of winter.

The twelve Horai were not always clearly distinguishable from the Horai of the seasons who were also described as overseeing the path of the sun.